How-to: Modify and Install ATI Drivers on your Windows XP Laptop

Unless you’ve never bothered to try and install video card drivers on your laptop, you’ve surely noticed that you simply cannot download and install drivers from the ATI website.

Here is how you modify the driver’s setup information file to allow installation on a mobile platform requiring little more than peeking in your Device Manager and a few neat tricks.

Step 1. Let’s get started

The first thing we need to do is download the latest driver set from ATI/AMD’s website. You will want to select the package containing both the driver and the Catalyst Control Center, which is larger than the driver-only package. Once the download is complete, run the installation wizard and cancel the setup after the files have been extracted from the package. Don’t worry if you missed it, it’ll cancel out on its own regardless.

Unless you’ve specified otherwise, the driver has been extracted somewhere in the root ATI directory. Let’s find that driver:

C:/ATI/SUPPORT/[Driver version]/Driver/Driver/XP_INF/

The file we are looking for is CX_#.inf, where the pound sign indicates your driver version. Open it up with Notepad and note the long list of supported devices under the [ATI.Mfg, NTx86 header]. This is where we’ll be adding our modified device information to allow it to install properly.

Step 2. Finding your device ID

The INF file contains several pieces of information for every device: the device name, the control version, what display set to use an the ID. In this step, we’ll identify your device’s ID.

Scan through the list of existing devices and find the desktop equivalent of your video card. Copy that information and paste it on top of all the other devices. We’ll use this template as our device ID.

Open your Control Panel and navigate to the System properties. In there, select the Hardware tab and click on Device Manager. Find your video card and double-click it’s name. Head into the Details tab.

In the details tab, choose Hardware IDs from the pulldown menu. Find the proper device ID – it usually looks like this:

PCI\\VEN_####&DEV_####&SUBSYS_####

In my case, the Mobile Radeon 4650HD has the following ID string:

PCI\\VEN_1002&DEV_9480&SUBSYS_3624103C

Highlight the line and hit Ctrl+C to copy the string to your clipboard. Let’s head back into the setup information file (.inf) and add in our device. Remove the ID of the video information you’ve pasted on the first line and replace it with the information on your clipboard by hitting Ctrl+V.

You should have something like this on a single line:

"ATI Radeon Mobility 4650HD" = ati2mtag_M10, PCI\\VEN_1002&DEV_9480&SUBSYS_3624103C

Save the file and exit.

Step 3. Install the Driver

It’s time for us to load the driver. Head back into your video card’s properties panel and click on the Drivers tab then select Update Drivers. On the next screen, select Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) and click on Next. Now select the Don’t search option and click on Next. On the next screen, select the Have Disk button on the lower right and browse to the inf file we’ve modified.

Your device should automatically be selected from the list. If not, check that you’ve properly entered your device information in the file.

You’re done. The driver is ready.

Step 4. Install the Catalyst Control Center

This step is optional. If you want to control your display, your best bet is with the CCC. Head back to the ATI folder and find the CCC folder and run Setup.exe. That’s it, you’re done! Reboot when prompted and enjoy your updated driver. If you run into trouble, feel free to leave a comment!